are we human?
by The Crownless Queen
Summary: The alley was dark, Amelia knew the man standing before her, knife in hand, and her heart was breaking.


Written for Hogwarts' Media Study Assignment: Media Study - Zodiac: Write about a serial killer.

Also for Film Festival: Character - Criminal, the Writing Club: Amber's Attic - But whatever, however, whenever this ends, I want you to know that, right now, I love you forever, Book Club: Mama-ji - (color) blood red, (word) familiar, (word) goddess, Showtime: The Robbery - genre: angst, Liza's Loves: Serial Killer!AU, Soulmate!AU, Lyric Alley: In a cold trick of the light, Sophie's Shelf: Sympathy for the Devil: Write about someone seeing the good in a bad character, Lo's Lowdown: "There are always men like you.", Make an Easter Basket: Crayons: (plot point) someone showing their true colors, Build a Bunny: Pink – (flower) rose, Guess the Name: Fandango - Amelia, the Auction Challenge: (word) melancholy, Bingo Card: 20 - Quote: Someone has to leave first. This is a very old story. There is no other version of this story.

Also for Bex, happy late birthday.

 _Word count:_ 3382

* * *

 _ **are we human?**_

A pair of grey eyes, shining in the dark.

A smirk, so familiar Amelia couldn't stop her heart from clenching despite the fear and hatred that was already coursing through her veins.

 _Don't do this_ , she almost said. _Please_ , she almost begged.

But she wouldn't beg.

"What do you want?" she asked, forcing her voice to keep steady even as he heart was breaking. "Men like you always want _something_."

"You know there are no men like me."

Amelia laughed, the sound harsh and cold in the dark alleyway. "There are always men like you."

He cocked his head, his eyes gleaning almost silver in the pale light. "Is that so?"

Amelia licked her lips but stood her ground. "Yes."

And Regulus — god, _Regulus_ , how had she been so _blind_? — laughed. Amelia was viciously glad it sounded as broken as her heart felt, but it was no comfort.

"I'm sorry," he said, as if that meant anything coming from him. "I didn't want to have to do this."

Amelia's side burned and she gasped. No. It couldn't be.

And yet, it was. She knew those words by heart — had traced them on her skin countless times. Had _him_ do the same.

A soulmark. She had wondered about the context for it ever since her parents had told her what it meant.

She had never dreamed she would know what the other half of that conversation would be beforehand.

She almost smiled. Her fingertips tingled. They, too, remembered tracing those words along another's skin.

"You don't have to do anything you don't want to, Regulus," she replied, and she watched as he flinched, body jerking forward, almost as though he was reaching for her.

But he had lost that right. Maybe he never even had it in the first place.

It was too late anyway. Too late for him to reach her.

The gunshot echoed so loudly in the alleyway Amelia might as well have gone deaf. Somebody screamed, and she fell to her knees.

 _Look at me_ , she wanted to scream, eyes riveted into Regulus'. _Look at me!_ But he wouldn't.

She wanted to scream, but the words wouldn't come.

It was as though all air had left her chest, and she let her eyes fall shut. Maybe this was a fitting end to their story.

 _ **.**_

 _ **ten months earlier**_

 _ **.**_

"Excuse me, Miss? I believe you dropped this."

Startled, Amelia turned around to face a sharply dressed gentleman looking down at her. His black hair was just long enough for it to start developing some curls, and it framed a sharp face and sharper eyes.

He was holding out her wallet, and Amelia instantly patted her pockets. She smiled at him gratefully when she came up empty.

This was why she hated not carrying a handbag.

"Thank you," she said as she took back her wallet. "Mr…?"

"Black. Regulus Black." He winced as he undoubtedly caught the unwitting reference he had made, but Amelia found it… charming. She smiled.

"Amelia Bones," she replied, shoving her wallet back in her coat pocket with one hand, and holding out her other until he shook it. "It's a pleasure to meet you."

And she didn't know what made her do it — perhaps it was that Regulus sounded nice and wasn't too bad on the eyes, or maybe it was just that the weather was nice and Amelia had some time on her hands, but she looked up at him and asked, "What do you say about coffee? On me, for getting my wallet back to me."

Regulus blinked for a moment, clearly taken aback, before smirking. On most people, Amelia found smirks annoying, but Regulus' face looked made for it.

"Coffee," he agreed. "But I couldn't possibly let you pay. It's on me. I insist."

This time, Amelia could feel herself smile back as she stood her ground. "No, _I_ insist."

This could be fun.

 _ **.**_

 _ **four months earlier**_

 _ **.**_

"Bones, your boy-toy's here!"

Amelia rolled her eyes but her lips quirked up in a smile anyway. "He's not my 'boy-toy', John," she replied sternly. Just because Regulus was a few years younger than her didn't make him a 'boy-toy', and knowing John, it was better to nip that ridiculous notion right in the bud before he spread it to the rest of the precinct. "And it's _Sergeant_ Bones to you."

She heard Regulus chuckle. "Still being hard on your troops, I see." He bent down to press a light kiss on her lips, and Amelia smiled into it before deepening it, just for a moment.

"Always," she replied, before glaring at John, who had been standing there and watching them. "Well, Detective Dawlish, I seem to remember you having some paperwork due for tomorrow that you haven't finished. Why don't you go do that?"

John hurried out, undoubtedly muttering to himself about how sadistic she was being, and finally, she and Regulus where blissfully alone and she could let down her guard some.

Regulus huffed out a laugh as he perched on her desk. She would have shooed him away, but he had taken care not to disturb anything. "I can't believe you still call him 'Detective Dawlish' when we had him over for dinner last week."

Amelia shrugged. "I like to keep my professional and private lives separate. Now," she started to ask, absently tidying up her paperwork, "what are you doing here?"

Regulus' grey eyes suddenly turned almost piercing in their intensity. "It's 1 pm. We were supposed to do lunch together half an hour ago."

Amelia froze. "Shit, sorry, I completely forgot. We just caught wind of a new case, and…" She cut herself off. "I'm sorry. I got caught up in work, but I should have at least sent you a text or something. Raincheck?"

Regulus smirked. "No need. When I figured you weren't coming, I guessed something like this had happened. I do know you, you know," he added with a pointed look that made her blush like a schoolgirl. "Which is why I brought lunch back to you instead," he said, revealing a brown paper bag that she had somehow missed.

"Besides," he added as they were unpacking the food — greasy burgers and fries, her favorites on days like these — "this gives me a chance to visit you at work. I don't get to do that often."

Amelia cleared some more space on her desk for him to place two paper plates. "You know how it is," she said. "Safety protocols, we can't just let anyone waltz into our offices."

Had he been anyone, Amelia would have thought Regulus pouted at that, even if the expression was gone in an instant. "So I'm 'anyone' now?"

She rolled her eyes at him. "You know you're not. But still. Plus, I'm not even here half the time."

They ate quietly, for the most part. She hadn't realized how hungry she was until she took her first bite, but she had to force herself not to finish it in an instant after that.

Mostly, Regulus talked about his day at the office, where he was still shadowing his father — he was due to take over the family company any day now, but his runaway brother had been the one to initially be groomed for it, so there were plenty of things he still had to learn.

But occasionally, he asked her about her day too. It took her a long time to cotton onto what he was doing, but when she did she simply stared at him, putting her hamburger down.

"You know I can't discuss an ongoing case with you, Regulus," she told him, perhaps a little coldly, because he flinched, just a little.

"I know, I know," he replied, giving her an uneasy smile. His eyes darted to the side, lingering on her desk for an instant before snapping back to her. "It's just… I worry. It's not often a case draws you in this deep."

He was right, she reluctantly admitted. While she loved her work, and Regulus knew how dedicated she was to it, it was also rare for Amelia to get so lost as to forget her personal obligations. She usually kept alarms on her phone just in case she did, too.

She could see why Regulus would worry, even though… "I'm fine," she said. "It's fine. We just caught wind of someone new, and he's… worrying. But I'll be fine," she added with a slight smile. "We'll get him. We always do."

Something flashed in Regulus' eyes, too quick for her to catch. "I'm sure you will," he replied, but something in his voice sounded… off. His face looked… wrong. Cold.

She blinked and it was gone though, and Regulus was back to normal, asking her about her _troops_ ' latest mischief.

She corrected him on the 'troops' part — none of them were soldiers — but proceeded to regal him about what John had gotten up to in the breakroom that morning. It involved Tonks and applesauce, and Amelia had actually cracked a smile then.

As expected, it made Regulus smile as well, and it was like everything was back to normal.

But even after he left, promising to see her again tonight, Amelia couldn't quite let go of the feeling that there had been something wrong, just for an instant.

It wasn't until much later, when she was reviewing her papers, that she started to wonder… _Had Regulus seen the papers on her desk?_

 _ **.**_

 _ **three months earlier**_

 _ **.**_

Growing up, Amelia had been scared of her words for a long time, and her family had been scared right along with her. Most people had varieties of _I love you_ s scribbled somewhere on their body, or some random sentence from a person they probably only met once randomly and would never even know was their soulmate.

Her parents' were the first and her brothers' the second, and Amelia had grown up being jealous of them, no matter how hard she had tried not to be.

It was just… Everyone knew that people who had apologies written on their bodies didn't get happy endings, not usually. There were books, plays written about it.

But when Regulus traced those words on her, fingers and mouth trailing over the dark cursive like it was something holy (he had called her his goddess once, jokingly, and Amelia had rolled her eyes at him even though it had made her blush), those words didn't feel like the curse she had grown up thinking of them as.

They felt… insignificant. Part of her, but something she could so easily ignore and discard.

Something that couldn't hurt her.

 _ **.**_

 _ **six weeks earlier**_

 _ **.**_

There had been another body. Female, this time, with blood red hair and green eyes. Even in death, those green eyes had looked like emeralds.

She had been strangulated, like all previous victims. The killer's mark, a snake inside of a skull, had been left branded on her right arm.

She left a devastated husband and son behind, and Amelia wanted nothing more than to catch this killer, to get him off her streets.

Fury burned bright in her veins, but she refused to let it show, or to let it affect her job. She'd be better at it if she could keep a cool head — and yet, she couldn't get the pictures of those victims out of her head.

She couldn't get that _symbol_ out of her mind.

A hand touched her arm and she jumped, moving to strike on instinct.

Regulus held his hands up, alarmed and concerned. "Hey, it's just me. Don't shoot."

He was joking, but Amelia didn't laugh. She wasn't sure that, had she been carrying a weapon, she wouldn't have drawn it on him.

"I'm sorry," she said, wincing. "I'm just a little on edge with everything that's going on."

"A new body, huh?"

She tensed. "Yes, how did you know?"

Regulus arched an eyebrow at her. "You look like you haven't slept in days, and you just tried to hit me. I know that case's been worrying you lately, so it wasn't hard to guess. Also… It was on the news."

Amelia relaxed, feeling ashamed for… She didn't even know what for. She ran a hand through her hair — her hand hit nothing, and she remembered that she had put it up to keep it out of the way.

She closed her eyes for an instant, and when she reopened them, she reached for her coffee cup.

Regulus halted her halfway through. "I think you've had enough of that," he said gently. "Come on, it's late, why don't I take you home? We can stay at my place tonight?"

Amelia started to protest, but Regulus shut her down with a look.

"Amelia, you look exhausted. Your shift ended over an hour ago, and everyone else left. You're not going to do anyone any good if you burn out now. Just… let's go home, eat, and then go to sleep."

It was the 'you're useless like this' that convinced her. She almost bristled, but she knew herself well enough to tell that she had begun faltering hours earlier.

And right now, that sleep sounded divine.

 _ **.**_

 _ **four weeks earlier**_

 _ **.**_

Amelia snapped her head up from her door as someone knocked on her door.

She stared in disbelief as Sybil, the secretary, carried in a huge bouquet of blood red roses up to her desk.

It wasn't the first time — Regulus liked to send her flowers every now and then — but it still surprised her every time.

"What did he do this time?" Sybill asked her, drawing Amelia's attention away from admittedly gorgeous flowers.

"What do you mean?"

Sybil just stared at her pointedly, her eyes seeming even bigger than usual behind her large glasses. "Men only send out flowers like these when they have something to be forgiven for," she said.

Amelia bit back an eyeroll. "It's nothing like that," she said, turning back to the flowers. Despite herself, her fingers reached up for them, and she caressed the soft petals, just for an instant.

"If you say so." Sybil didn't sound convinced, but Amelia wasn't going to try to change her mind. God knew that was impossible once Sybil was set on something.

But the thought kept bugging her even after Sybil was gone — what if there _was_ a message there.

What if, what if, what if?

It wasn't until the next day that she saw it — she always got the roses when a new body appeared.

 _ **.**_

 _ **two days earlier**_

 _ **.**_

It couldn't be Regulus. It just couldn't — there was no way she had been sharing her life with a serial killer for the last year. She would have known. She would have.

… _Wouldn't she?_

John had looked at her like she had gone mad when she had approached him with the idea of looking into a possible connection between the victims and Regulus.

"You _know_ him," he had said.

"I know," Amelia had replied. "And that's why I have to know."

It made her almost physically sick to even consider the possibility, but that idea — that Regulus might be connected to this nameless serial killer she had been chasing for months — was like a virus. It had infected her thoughts, and now she couldn't shake it.

Every time she and Regulus met now, every time they shared a bed, she would find herself staring at him, and wondering…

 _Are you the man I'm looking for?_

But she wasn't imagining the way Regulus looked almost… guilty sometimes. He had lost weight, and there was an odd… almost like a melancholy to him now, like he knew his days were numbered.

"Work," he'd evade when Amelia would ask, but it sounded like a lie.

She couldn't remember when he had started lying to her.

They found nothing at first — no links between him and the victims (except for one, who had been the wife of one of his brother's friend, but that was tangential at best) — and for a while, Amelia had breathed easier for it.

But then, they had started looking into his company. Regulus' father's company.

It should have been satisfying, watching all the pieces coming together, but Amelia's heart was too busy breaking for her to even feel the slightest amount of pride in her work.

The others officers were buzzing with excitement, but John, who knew how much Regulus meant to her — she hadn't ever told him she loved him, and neither had he, but they both simply _knew_ it was there anyway — had stayed solemnly silent by her side.

"I'm sorry," he said.

Amelia's hand drifted to her side, to the words carved there by some cruel god, but she dropped it back to her side, clenching her fists.

For so long, she had kept herself from trusting anyone with her heart because of those words, and yet, somehow, Regulus had slipped right through her walls and made himself home in her heart.

And yet, for all that she now suspected (was almost certain) he had done, she loved him still.

She loved him still.

"I know where he lives," she said out loud, praying her voice wouldn't break. "But we'll need a warrant."

John, bless his soul, nodded immediately. "I'll get it for you."

She nodded. As he went, she kept staring at the board where they had pinned up everything they had found — all the victims they had found had _almost_ been clients of Orion Black's firm.

Almost, because they had turned him down when he had offered his services.

"How did we miss this?" she whispered to herself before shaking her head. "How?"

She kept staring at that board like it held the answers, trying not to drown in her own mind.

 _ **.**_

 _ **present day**_

 _ **.**_

She pursued him into an alley, ditching her partner in the process.

She didn't even know if it was voluntary — all she knew was that Regulus was guilty, and the instant she had seen him, the chase had been on.

It was dark — almost like it was night instead of day — and her eyes took a moment to adjust.

"Stop running! Or I'll shoot!" she yelled, unholstering her weapon.

To her surprise, he did.

She saw his eyes first, bright and grey, almost like liquid moonlight.

She had loved those eyes.

She saw the knife next, and the wire coiled around his wrist. Her blood froze. She knew what he did with that wire.

"Now what?" he asked her, and Amelia hated that he didn't sound any different _now_ than he had back then, when it had been just the two of them sharing a bed. "Are you going to kill me, Amelia?"

"I'm going to _arrest_ you," she replied coldly.

"I don't think so." He looked almost sad to be telling her this.

"What do you want?" Amelia asked, keeping her gun trained on him.

He smirked, and everything happened so fast.

A glint of silver.

A burning in her side.

The gunshot, then silence.

The silence was the worst part, she thought.

"Why?" she asked it. "Why did this happen? Why did he do this?"

That was the thing they hadn't been able to figure out yet — why.

The _why_ was the part that didn't make sense.

She hated that she might never know.

The silence didn't answer her, and, a mere few feet away, neither did Regulus.

He stared up at a sky he would never see again, blood pooling underneath his body.

It wasn't until her partner caught up with her that she realized she had been crying.

That she couldn't stop crying.

Regulus was gone, and she had killed him.

He had been the serial killer she had been after all along, and yet…

And yet, she couldn't stop loving him.

What did that make her?

 _What did that make her?_


End file.
